CloudWalker wrote:I don't know how I feel about this, I just hope Luka is happy enough and the team welcomes him warmly. It might sound cheesy, but this kid deserves all the freaking best in the world and knowing what a team player he is I just hope they appreciate him. If there is one thing that's clear is with Luka you got a player who will give his all to win every single game.
It only really hit me now. No more Luka in Europe.
Man, it really sucks to lose all the best young players to the NBA. I wish him a long and successful career, it's been a long time since I was this infatuated with a basketball player. Good luck, little Champ!
Europe isn't losing all the best players to the NBA. Obradovic just started saying that some years ago, and a bunch of people started repeating it like it's a fact.
Reality = this draft of Doncic, Wagner, Musa, Okobo, Bonga, Kurucs, Sanon, Mikhailuk, Kulboka, K. Antetokounmpo - it's nowhere near amounting to all the best European players that were eligible to be drafted, or that could have stayed in the draft, and no way in hell close if you count guys born in 96 that NBA simply refuses to even consider.
Doncic is a big loss, and maybe Musa is a little bit of a loss (depends on how he develops), the rest are absolutely nothing at all special in Europe and as good or better players in Europe come every year (with most of them never going to NBA), as good or better players in Europe exist in their same age group and were not taken in this draft, and all of those such players (except Doncic) can easily be replaced by as good or better players from USA, Canada, Latin America, Africa, Australia.
And of course some of those players won't even eventually be in NBA - some probably never even play there, and some only for a little bit. But other than Doncic, and maybe Musa, none of them is a loss for European basketball really. None of them other than Doncic is good enough to be a EuroLeague MVP, or a lead EuroLeague team to a championship. None of them other than Doncic could turn out that well.
I actually doubt if other than Musa, any of those other players could ever even make an All EuroLeague 2nd team. So it's really not at all true about all this best players got to NBA belief - it's just something Obradovic kept telling people and now people seem to believe it. If you break it down and analyze it, Europe lost exactly one important player (Doncic) that was it.